This invention relates to an automatic vending machine, and, more particularly, it is concerned with an automatic food frying and vending system which is capable of automatically preparing fried food such as fried chicken, chicken nuggets, fried potatoes, and so on, and selling these fried foods through this system to the public in general.
There has been known in this type of vending system that food material is automatically fried in cooking oil and sold from the same system (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 61-20520).
The abovementioned conventional system, however, possesses various inconveniences such that a customer should take out a packed container of food material to be fried, which is stored in a refrigerating apparatus installed separately from a fried food vending machine, open the lid or cover of the packed container, and put the contents into the frying machine, hence the operating procedures are somewhat troublesome and inconvenient. In addition, it happens not infrequently that the customer puts the food material to be fried into the frying machine without opening the container lid, which is liable to cause various problems such as machine disorders, and others.
The present invention has been made with a view to solving these various problems, and aims at providing an improved food frying and vending system which is capable of storing the materials to be fried in their frozen state, and of automatically frying the frozen food material in cooking oil to be ready for serving to the public in general.